Interestingly, I almost never read nonfiction. Ninety-nine out of 100 books that I read will be fiction, but this book would have to be that 1 in 100 that isn’t. I am actually reading this book currently, and it’s my own fault for not starting it sooner. I received the book as a gift over a year ago, and I must guiltily admit that I shelved it in favor of my usual fiction…until I saw that it was Amazon’s editors’ pick of the year. But honestly, it shouldn’t have taken that much for me to give the book a try, because the synopsis is as compelling and original as any fiction — except that it’s real, and relevant to my work as a scientist.

This book tells the story of Henrietta Lacks, a Black woman who worked tobacco fields in Virginia in the 1930s and 40s. A poor woman with only a middle school education, Henrietta stoically faced a diagnosis of cervical cancer while striving to continue in her role as a wife and mother of five. Little did she or her family know that a sample of her cervical cancer would revolutionize research science by providing the first human cells to ever grow indefinitely in culture – an immortal cell line. Unfortunately, that fact spoke to the aggressiveness of Henrietta’s cancer, which killed her at the young age of 30 in 1951. What her family didn’t know, however, was that the cells of their beloved Henrietta lived on…and on, and on, and on. HeLa (Henrietta Lacks) cells were and still are bought and sold widely within the scientific community and have enabled numerous discoveries, including the polio vaccine and, somewhat ironically, advances in chemotherapy. I entreat you to imagine her family’s surprise and outrage when they finally were informed of all that had been accomplished with Henrietta’s cells – when they themselves were too poor to afford a doctor’s visit. So much more than just a biography, this book has pleasantly surprised me thus far with the honest, candid account that the author gives of her own challenges as an upper-middle class White woman attempting to tease out the details of this sensitive subject from Henrietta’s family and friends.

Some call Henrietta Lacks the most important woman in medical history. What I know is that I can probably get up right now and go find a vial of her cells in some freezer on the very floor where I do my work, as could just about every research scientist. It goes without saying that this is a book that every researcher should read, but anyone who has ever taken their own cells for granted will find this an eye-opening read.